This invention involves a paper box, more particularly a corrugated paper box for take out and delivery of pizza pies. Specifically, portions of the box yield paper serving plates and an embodiment allows the box to be separated or at least easily bent into small sized disposable pieces.
The pizza pie has become one of the most popular dishes in this country. The common form is a square or round flat crust on which tomato sauce and cheese and/or other ingredients are placed before baking in a high temperature oven. A wide variety of toppings are provided sufficient to suit almost everyone's taste. Although a significant portion of the pizza is eaten in the restaurant or parlor a good portion is ordered and taken out to eat at home, at picnics or at parties. Various types of packaging has been used, but most pizza parlors utilize a cardboard box sized to hold twelve, fourteen, or sixteen inch pies. Although octagonal and hexagonal boxes are offered, the most common is a box with a square top and bottom. Recently, the boxes are constructed of corrugated cardboard for added rigidity and insulation.
These corrugated cardboard boxes are not easy to discard. It is difficult to fold the box up into a small package that will readily fit into a kitchen trash can. When the standard corrugated pizza box is placed in a large trash can, it typically spans the entire inside diameter and is wedged side to side substantially reducing the effective capacity of the trash can. Commonly, cardboard and corrugated boxes are the subject of recycling programs generally requiring that the cardboard boxes be broken down, flattened and packaged in a relatively small cross-sectional area. The corrugated pizza box resists these disposal methods.
As suggested above, pizza pies are popular as a quick and easy lunch or dinner. Generally, pie is eaten in an extremely informal manner, such as in front of the TV set, at a party gathering, or even outside at a picnic, a ball game, or like setting. On those occasions, it is usually not desirable to furnish plates and table utensils, as one of the purposes of a "quick meal" is to reduce clean up time and effort. Further, many persons do not utilize table utensils in consuming the pizza. A most common technique is to simply pick up the slice of pizza by the crust folding the edges upwardly and eating it directly out of the hand. On the other hand, there are many situations where the host or hostess would like to serve the slices to the individuals and, when the pizza is very hot, it is very helpful to have something to rest the slice of pizza on while waiting for it to cool and then eating it. Use of separate paper or plastic plates is an added expense and substantially increases the amount of trash generated during the serving and consuming a pizza pie.
None of the containers and boxes of the prior art have satisfied the above needs nor have they attained the objects described herein below.